Greg Chaille transformed the Oregon Community Foundation into a foundation powerhouse

Motoya Nakamura/The OregonianGreg Chaille is retiring as president of the Oregon Community Foundation

Greg Chaillé's unruffled mannerisms, spectacles and owl-like gaze are part of his self-effacing demeanor -- a low-key style that has quietly affected the lives of countless Oregonians.

For 24 years, Chaillé's been president of the Oregon Community Foundation, which manages more than $1 billion in long-term investments designed to give ongoing annual donations to charities and nonprofits across the state.

The 38-year-old foundation is the sixth largest of its kind in the country. But when Chaillé became president in 1987, it was exponentially smaller -- holding about $40 million in funds. And its focus was mostly Portland. Today, its influence spreads across the entire state.

Now the onset of Parkinson's disease symptoms has persuaded Chaillé, 62, to leave the job -- and to think about his life and all he's accomplished in new ways.

"Before my diagnosis, my epitaph would have been: 'Greg Chaillé was a hard worker.' But I'd rather people think I was a loving person instead of a hard worker. I have some years to change that. Along the way, up until now, I've not been close to some people. This has been a wake-up call about relationships."

Big shoes, little shoesIt's a late November morning, and Chaillé is talking with staff at Catholic Charities, a Southeast Portland nonprofit that helps the underprivileged. Recently, the foundation contributed money to the charity for its new digs on Powell Boulevard. Now Chaillé wants to see how things turned out.

At one point during the meeting, Catholic's development director Anne Holloway tells Chaillé his successor will have "big shoes to fill."

Chaillé smiles, then waves his feet out from under the table.

"Actually, he'll have little ones to fill," he says.

Chaillé isn't a charismatic figure craving the public spotlight. He's reserved, a few ticks short of shy, and not just because of the Parkinson's, which has slowed Chaillé physically and causes his hands to tremble occasionally. Friends like former foundation board member Ken Lewis describe Chaillé's approach as subtle and workmanlike. It might be easy to undersell all he's done.

Chaillé avoids confrontations and unnecessary risks, and eschews showy statements. He's not ambitious in the sense of desiring power. But he's always wanted to "leave the world a better place." And his approach to harnessing change has been to operate within the rules, even conventions, of the philanthropic world.

Chaillé was born in Pasadena, Calif., the third of four children. His father was a judge, his mom a high school counselor. Chaillé says theirs was an ardent, loving family.

His parents were also advocates of civic affairs and voting rights efforts, including, in the 1960s, protesting the Vietnam War.

Their activism left an impression on the young Chaillé, who was approaching draft age: You can't change the world unless you get involved. When he was 16, he attended a teach-in revolving around civil rights at the University of California, Los Angeles.

After high school, Chaillé studied architecture at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, but didn't like the program there. So he transferred to the University of California at Berkeley, where he became an independent major with an emphasis on sociology and economics.

Chaillé says he identified with the spirit of the '60s protest movement but embraced only few of its practices and none of its extremes. He didn't experiment with drugs, for instance, but "dressed the style" of the counterculture. He believed in social activism but not in revolution.

"Going beyond the line meant you became part of the problem," he says.

As an example, he points to the recent Occupy Portland protesters. Chaillé thinks they're protesting for the sake of protesting, not solving specific issues. He doesn't know what they stand for.

A better worldChaillé was only 18 and still in college when he married his high school sweetheart, Christine.

"He was smart, and responsible for someone so young," says Christine Chaillé, now a professor of curriculum and instruction at Portland State University. "He had his act together. And, of course, he was handsome."

The Chaillés were married for 33 years and have two children, Adrienne, a customer service and support officer at Mercy Corps, and Peter, a marine biologist who directs an ecology and environmental policy nonprofit, Tatoosh School. They divorced 11 years ago but remain on close terms.

Christine Chaillé spoke affectionately of her ex-husband. She also pointed out two defining characteristics:

"Wherever we lived, we had beautiful places," she said. "They were beautiful because he made them so. We once lived in a dumpy apartment in San Diego, but he made it beautiful. This wasn't just about being handy. He wanted to improve things, to leave things in a better situation compared to before."

The other notable thing about her ex-husband, Christine Chaillé says, is that he's "a very proud man, who doesn't want to show his weakness, his funny side, his human side. One time, while working on the house, he came in and said: 'You need to get the pliers and take this nail out of my hand.' I couldn't do it. He ended up doing it himself and didn't go to the hospital."

Putting "Oregon" in the foundation After graduating from Berkeley in 1971, Chaillé spent two years at San Francisco State University to study sociology. Afterward, he and Christine lived and worked in different parts of the world, including Switzerland, Los Angeles and Hartford, Conn. His work experience mostly involved community organizing and academic research.

Then Christine got a job teaching at the University of Oregon, and the Chaillés moved to Eugene. When his initial job prospects in Eugene fell through, Greg Chaillé -- acting on a tip from friends who worked in the development community -- gave a call to a small community foundation in Portland.

In 1980, the 7-year-old Oregon Community Foundation had only two full-time employees. Chaillé made the foundation a low-risk but entrepreneurial offer.

"I said: 'I'll set up your first grant program and work for you two days a week on a contract basis for six months,'" says Chaillé. "They liked the idea."

Chaillé says he didn't know much about the foundation or where the job would lead. He just needed a job -- but a particular kind.

"I wasn't ambitious," he says. "I just wanted a job consistent with my values. I wanted to make a difference."

He made enough of a difference to stick around long after the initial six months. Seven years later, Chaillé became the foundation's president. And many things there began to change.

The Oregon Community Foundation is composed of many sources of money, not just one. Funds are given to the foundation by donors who want the money to go to specific charities or, in some cases, nonprofits. The foundation is hired to invest and manage the money. Sometimes, it designates how unrestricted money from donors can be given away.

When Chaillé took over, most of the foundation's efforts were in Portland and most of its money came from there. To Chaillé, that meant the foundation was coming up short -- it was ignoring the rest of Oregon. So he set out to create a regional infrastructure and enlisted volunteers across the state, particularly in rural areas. When he began, the foundation had 40 volunteers. It currently has 1,600. And money now comes in from all of Oregon.

Looking back, Chaillé said the most compelling barrier to expanding the foundation's reach was trust. Some thought the foundation was trying to siphon money away from small local nonprofits.

Rather, Chaillé says, the foundation was encouraging participation in a different kind of giving.

"We were saying: 'If you want to give to your community nonprofit right now, then please do. But if you want to create a fund to give to that same nonprofit forever, then give the money to us. We'll invest it and manage it."

"Greg helped create an awareness that foundations should help rural communities," said Peg Crowley, executive director of the Community Health Center, which helps low-income and uninsured people in Jackson County. Crowley has known Chaillé for 31 years and says the center has received more than $1 million from the foundation. "Lives have been saved," says Crowley.

Chaillé did other things besides expanding the foundation's footprint. He hired planned gift officers to target donations from post-World War II-era patrons who were starting to think about ways to share their wealth with Oregon's next generation.

Planning for this transferral of wealth didn't just increase the foundation's endowment: It produced hundreds of millions of dollars of charitable donations for use around the state. The foundation has given $733 million to Oregon charities and nonprofits in its history, with $707 million of that coming during Chaillé's tenure as president.

But Chaillé's approach has detractors. Some say the foundation's most innovative work was in the 1990s, and that it's too concerned with boosting its endowment. And critics say it refuses to take chances in how it spends money: It's a fund-giving mechanism, not an agent of social change.

Chaillé says those criticisms miss the point.

"That's what we do," he says. "The way we pay out money is by getting more money. Being an agent of change is not about money. It's about ideas. But money is instrumental ..."

Motoya Nakamura/The OregonianChaille will spend more time with family after his retirement and tend to his health. Still, he'll be advising the foundation and his successor, Max Williams.

Reflecting on the future After an hour of touring the Catholic Charities facility, Chaillé enters an elevator in order to return to the ground floor. He's on his way to the parking lot and his car.

As soon as the elevator door closes, he turns and abruptly says: "Hold this."

I take his briefcase while he uses both hands to pull out a prescription pill bottle from his coat pocket. He shoots a pill into his mouth.

Chaillé explains that his hands had begun to tremble because of the Parkinson's and he wanted to take medication to quell the tremors. The tremors usually occur when he's socializing -- that's when he's happy and adrenaline is kicking in.

Chaillé was diagnosed in 2009 with Parkinson's, a degenerative disease of the nervous system. Chaillé isn't bitter or wallowing in despair: It's just another life challenge and he's dealing with it.

"I have a high tolerance for pain," he says.

One way of dealing with things is to leave the foundation's top job.

Chaillé has always been physically active -- he's a fisherman, cyclist, runner. But being head of the foundation requires travel and, often, very long hours. Retiring will allow him time to focus on his health. In January, Max Williams, head of Oregon's Corrections Department and a former member of the Oregon Legislature, will succeed Chaillé.

Still, Chaillé will be around the office, serving as a strategic adviser to the foundation for the next year or so. Beyond strengthening his health and helping the foundation when he wants, Chaillé will spend more time with his children. He and his daughter, Adrienne, will travel abroad in January.

In the past several months, Chaillé has been honored and toasted so much that he's beginning to feel uncomfortable -- just too much attention. But his illness and these collective farewells have prompted Chaillé to reflect more openly about his life, his career.

Is he satisfied that he's leaving the foundation -- and Oregon -- in a better place? Very much so, he says.

But Chaillé believes other things are still being resolved, like his feelings about people.

The man who has spent most of his life helping others says his illness has pushed him to see his place differently in the world. He wants to become more empathetic toward others in his life.

"I don't think I reached out in ways to people I could have," he says. "At the end of the day, I want to feel I've added value to society and that I've given love to all those I'm close to."